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Wednesday, March 31, 2021
herMIsTOnheraLd.cOM • A9
Classes:
continued from Page a1
students will be spread out
in smaller groups in com-
mon areas and outdoor
spaces to make lunchtime
work. Students who don’t
bring lunch from home will
be given a sack lunch to take
to their designated area, and
breakfast for the next morn-
ing will be sent home with
students rather than eaten in
the classroom.
She said the other key
change in the Ready
Schools, Safe Learners
guidance, updated March
15, changed rules for
“cohorts” designed to limit
the spread of outbreaks by
limiting the number of peo-
ple students and staff came
into contact with in the
building. Removing a rule
that students must come
into contact with no more
than 100 different peo-
ple per week allows high
school students to move
from class to class for dif-
ferent subjects as they
would in a normal year.
Parents face competing
considerations
While teachers have been
given the option to be vac-
cinated against COVID-19,
it is not required by the dis-
trict, and there is no vac-
cine available for children
under age 16 right now. As
students in Umatilla County
have returned to extracurric-
ular activities, some groups
— including the Hermiston
football team and Pendleton
boys soccer team — have
already had to quarantine
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Social distancing markings adorn tables in Renae Bartley’s
sixth grade classroom at Sandstone Middle School in
Hermiston on Thursday, March 25, 2021.
after someone affiliated with
the activity tested positive.
Families that are con-
cerned about the potential
for their child being exposed
to COVID-19 in the class-
room will be able to partic-
ipate in the virtual academy
Hermiston Online! instead.
But there are other fam-
ilies that are thrilled to see
their children return to learn-
ing in person. Misty Grabeel
has been one of the parents
pushing Hermiston School
District to return students to
the classroom full time, five
days a week. She described
herself as “ecstatic” about
the news they would be able
to do just that.
“It’s been incredibly
hard for our family to main-
tain structure, without me
being the mean mom all the
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
time,” she said. “Children
need structure. They need
routine.”
She is happy to see her
12-year-old and 14-year-
old return to the classroom
full time, but said beyond
that, she has been fight-
ing for students who don’t
have a stable, supportive
home life. Grabeel said she
grew up in a troubled home
where drugs were present,
and knows how difficult it
would have been in her cir-
cumstances to be asked to
stay at home all day every
day. School was her escape,
she said, where she knew
she would get fed two meals
a day and be around adults
who were focused on her
success.
She said she feels it will
also be extremely helpful
Sandstone Middle School teacher Lucas Eivins leads a lesson on Caesar and Pompey during
class on Thursday, March 25, 2021.
for students’ mental health
to get back into the class-
room now, instead of going
into summer break with
no idea whether they will
face another year of virtual
learning in the fall.
Staff prepare to help
students catch up
Mooney said district staff
are generally looking for-
ward to seeing students in
person full time.
“When the announce-
ment went out, there was a
lot of excitement,” she said.
“I was getting messages
saying, ‘I’m crying.’”
She said she has a
hard-working, talented staff
who she has confidence
Vaccine:
get enough vaccines and
set up (opportunities) for
the farmworkers to get vac-
cinated,” Umatilla County
Commissioner George Mur-
dock said.
The efforts come in
response to an announce-
ment from Gov. Kate Brown,
saying the state would speed
up its vaccination timeline
to meet the Biden adminis-
tration’s goal of having all
adults in the country eligi-
ble for a vaccine by May 1.
Other categories of essen-
tial workers, such as gro-
cery store workers, as well
as people under age 45 with
underlying conditions, will
become eligible for the vac-
cine on Monday, April 5.
The change in Morrow
and Umatilla counties is
especially geared toward
a community of frontline
workers that have borne the
brunt of the pandemic —
Hispanic and Latino agri-
cultural workers.
In Umatilla County, His-
panic residents accounted
for more than 40% of the
county’s total COVID-19
cases in 2020, according to
data from the county health
department. They made up
the highest number of cases
in the county from April to
September 2020, when the
health department reported
cases were being driven
mostly by workplace out-
breaks. The population
also tested positive at a rate
over three times higher than
non-Hispanics and were
hospitalized at a higher rate,
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Jorge Tapia Madrigal looks away as he receives his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a mass
vaccination event for farmworkers at the Sage Center in Boardman on Wednesday, March 24,
2021.
the data shows.
And in Morrow County,
Hispanic residents have
accounted for approxi-
mately 57% of the coun-
ty’s total COVID-19 cases,
according to data provided
by county officials as of
March 12.
Officials from both coun-
ties have pointed to work-
place exposures in food
processing and agricultural
facilities as having contrib-
uted to the disproportion-
ately high rates of infection,
which echoes both state and
national trends.
“Our
farmworkers
were
disproportionately
impacted by COVID,”
Murdock said. “We had
some very high numbers,
and it was people who had
District awards bid
for construction of
elementary school
herMIsTOn heraLd
Kirby Nagelhout Con-
struction will build both of
Hermiston’s new elemen-
tary school buildings.
The Hermiston School
District
previously
announced the contrac-
tor had been awarded the
bid to build the new, larger
Rocky Heights Elementary
School, and this week also
awarded the bid for con-
struction of Loma Vista
Elementary School, which
is planned for East Theater
Lane.
out of the sense of isolation
that came from not being in
the classroom. The district
had already hired a social
worker before the current
school year began, and she
said school counselors have
worked hard to reach out to
students and families and
make connections from the
time students were online
only. She said she thinks
that will pay off.
When asked what grad-
uation might look like this
year, Mooney said the dis-
trict’s former location —
the Toyota Center in Kenne-
wick — will not be available
for graduation this year, so
they are working on another
plan, to be announced.
VACCINATION LOCATIONS
continued from Page a1
Vaccines for the vulnerable
will do what they need to
in order to help students
recover from less than ideal
learning circumstances over
the past year.
“The learning loss is not
unique to Hermiston, and
we’re going to be dealing
with that and working to
get kids back on track,” she
said.
Like many schools in
the state, the district has
asked the state for a waiver
for the lengthy state testing
process this spring in order
to preserve that time for
instruction.
Mooney said she was
more concerned about the
mental health of students,
and dealing with the fall-
According to the news
release, Kirby Nagel-
hout, which is headquar-
tered in Bend and has
offices in Pendleton, was
the apparent low bid on
the Loma Vista project,
at $22,579,000. The new
elementary school will
be 73,500 square feet and
serve about 600 students.
Groundbreaking events
for both elementary school
projects will take place on
April 13.
Construction
is
expected to conclude in
summer 2022.
no choice. If they want to
support their families, they
had to work. They have to
be out in the fields and in
the processing plants. And
while efforts are made to
try and protect them, it’s
very difficult. So, conse-
quently, they become very,
very vulnerable.”
Just in time
The state’s approval
comes just in time for spring
planting and harvest, which
brings an influx of agricul-
tural workers to the region
annually, officials from
both counties said. In Uma-
tilla County, harvest sea-
son brings with it more than
10,000 additional jobs, offi-
cials say. Morrow County
also sees a surge.
“That’s exactly why we
immediately raised our
hand” when the state said
counties could expand vac-
cinations,” Morrow County
Commissioner
Melissa
Lindsay said. She added that
the county’s essential work-
force is one of the largest
in the state and is predom-
inantly comprised of His-
panic and Latino workers.
Lindsay said she hopes
the new timeline will bring
with it a surge of vaccina-
tions as the county begins to
see more and more people
hesitant to get a shot.
Morrow County offi-
cials will be making further
efforts to communicate and
educate regional farmwork-
ers about the importance of
getting vaccinated as har-
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ALLELUIA!
Come celebrate Easter with us at
ST. JOHN’S
EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Holy Eucharist & Easter Liturgy
- 9:00 AM • April 4, 2021 -
We are resuming in-person worship with
County Covid Guidelines in place.
665 E. Gladys Avenue, Hermiston
Good Shepherd Medical Center
Clinics held each Thursday from 7-11 a.m. and noon to
4 p.m. on campus. No appointment needed.
Mirasol Family Health Clinic
Contact 541-567-1717 or mirasol@yvfwc.org to request an
appointment.
Safeway
Visit safeway.com/pharmacy/covid-19.html to make an
appointment at the pharmacy.
BiMart
Visit bimart.com/pharmacy/covid-19-vaccine to make an
appointment at the pharmacy.
Walmart
Visit www.walmart.com/covidvaccine to make an appoint-
ment at the pharmacy.
Family Health Associates
Call 541-567-6434 to schedule a vaccine appointment at
the Hermiston or Umatilla offices, or visit the clinic’s vacci-
nation event on Friday, April 2 at Umatilla High School from
3-7 p.m.
Umatilla County Public Health
Visit ucohealth.net/covid-events-new/hermiston or like the
Umatilla County Public Health Facebook page to stay up on
new vaccine clinic information.
Vaccines are free and are available at these locations to those
who meet Oregon Health Authority’s eligibility requirements.
For a full list of eligibility, visit govstatus.egov.com/OR-OHA-
COVID-19.
vest season continues, Lind-
say said.
Umatilla County Public
Health Director Joe Fiumara
said he’s also concerned that
the vaccine turnout among
agricultural workers will be
slim, since many employees
cannot simply leave work to
get a shot.
So, the county has con-
tacted employers at agri-
culture and food process-
ing facilities to bring the
vaccines to them. Murdock
said the health department
has “talked to virtually all
employers of both process-
ing plants and farmers to try
to figure out strategies for
conducting vaccines where
they are.”
The county has already
held vaccine clinics at two
food processing facilities
in Weston, Fiumara said a
week ago, and more were
planned for later in the
week.
“Our hope is that by
reducing some barriers for
these (food processing) and
migrant workers,” he said,
“they don’t have to nec-
essarily leave work, go to
our drive-thru on a Thurs-
day or Friday, maybe sit
for a half-hour in line, and
then go back to work and
potentially miss out on three
or four hours of pay to get
their shot when we can, in
many cases, get to them and
reduce that time.”